Charlie's Story
by justmica
Summary: Eden has been separated from the rest of her group, much to their horror. Will they try to get her back, or will they be forced to move on? This is a short side story to my other story Retaining Sanity.


**Author's Preamble: **This is a fairly short side story for my rather (i.e. very) long story _Retaining Sanity_. It is told from Charlie's point of view and briefly follows the survivors after they are separated from Eden up until they reach the evac site. This will be very short, only one chapter. I would recommend reading _Retaining Sanity_ before reading this. Otherwise, the ending of this story won't mean as much.  
I hope my readers enjoy it. Especially the ending. :)

* * *

**Charlie's Story**

The butt end of the rifle dug into my shoulder as I leveled it carefully out the window I had just shattered and pointed it down the dark street of the abandoned city towards the mess of flailing forms and gunfire drawing ever closer towards the building I guarded. Not quite close enough for me to get off a decent shot without possibly hitting a non Infected, but that would change within the next few moments if the Infected weren't put down quickly. Best be ready. I slid my finger securely into place over the trigger, the blood pounding in my ears as I squinted through the first class scope mounted on top my weapon of choice, the hunter rifle I had "borrowed" from the outdoor recreation store all those months ago. It hadn't failed me yet. It had better not fail me now. I had friends out there depending on me.

Me. The computer engineer in sniper mode.

The thought made me smile slightly, a strain on my taut facial muscles. Hah. Sniper mode. That's what Eden always called it. That girl certainly knew how to make a geeky guy feel like a commando.

Through the high powered scope, I saw the shadow of the friend in question—unmistakable due to her height, or the lack of it—lunge forward, katana swinging, into the mass of oncoming Infected with a fury and a vengeance and a skill that always awed me. And somewhat scared me. Like watching a deadly predator at work. In the dim lighting I saw the flash of her blade as it rose and fell repeatedly, a visual compliment to the chaotic symphony of gunfire and screams. A comforting part, as crazy as that sounded. The sight of it fueled me, heightened my senses, prepared me and excited me for my part in the battle ahead. Just as it always did.

I readied myself. They were close enough now. I steadied the rifle in my hands, eyes immediately and easily selecting a target. A dark form against an even darker street. Like threading a needle with a cannonball. But I was a natural at that. I took a deep breath, closing one eye to aim with the other. Then I exhaled. Waited for my breath to run out. Pulled back on the trigger.

With a kick, the bullet was off. A moment later, the head of my target exploded in brains and blood and flesh, the end of an Infected who had strayed to close to my fearless leader while she dealt with another of the creatures. Bull's-eye.

Damn, I was a good shot. No point in being modest about it.

I swiftly loaded another bullet and aimed with practiced ease, taking out another Infected who had tried to lunge itself at my other, larger friend while his back was turned. Another head shot. Maybe a little off center from the forehead, but hey, this was coming from a guy who had never touched a real gun until a few weeks ago and had never fired anything more than a computerized simulation up until then. Talk about hidden talents.

My eyes searched for another target, but there were none left now. So I sat back to watch the shorter of my two friends gracefully and brutally put down the last of the oncoming horde. Then it was over. My two friends stood surrounded by the dead and confronted the four strangers they had set off to rescue. Talking, I suppose. As if there wouldn't be enough time for that once they got to safety.

I inhaled slowly through my nose, opening both eyes but keeping them trained on the street beyond.

"Come on, get a move on," I muttered to no one but myself. "That was too easy for comfort."

As if they had heard me, the small gaggle of people started moving swiftly towards me. Instead of making me relax, the sight only put me further on edge. They were still a block or so away. More than enough time for something to happen. I wouldn't rest easy until every single one of us was swapping jokes in the safe house a floor below.

A distant shriek jolted my gaze away from the survivors. My eyes skimmed the distance buildings, searching…there! Movement!

My body responded automatically. The barrel of the gun I held trained on the spot where I saw what could only have been a Hunter. I fired.

But just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. I felt my breath hold in my chest, building, foreboding. It was like a warning. A sign.  
And right on cue around the corner came the second wave of nightmares. The group on the street hesitated for about half a second. Then they broke out into a flat out run.

"Why can't my pessimism for once just be unfulfilled paranoia," I mumbled, taking aim. I looked through the scope just in time to see one of the other survivors suddenly and roughly disappear into what I guessed to be an alleyway they were passing, a long, sickeningly familiar rope like thing wrapped around her waist. I felt my body suddenly tense, my throat muscles working in the desire to shout out a warning, not because of the stranger's predicament, but because I knew who would be going after her, once again showing the reckless desire to help others without a second thought for her own wild self.

Sure enough, the shortest figure out on the street immediately started after the snagged survivor, disappearing from my line of sight without so much as a backward glance.

"Dammit, Eden," I cursed viciously, glaring at the spot she had disappeared. I wanted to keep watching, waiting for her to reappear, but the second wave of zombies was proving to be a little more than the street group could handle. Cursing again, I swung my rifle to bear and took aim. "One of these days, your luck is going to run out."

It was an observation that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

The group was being pushed back up the street towards us. Away from the alleyway where Eden had disappeared along with the other survivor. Where were they?

Almost immediately after thinking that question, I saw movement darting out from the side, joining the rest. A girl…but she was taller. Too tall.

The gun jumped in my arms as I took out an Infected in mid lunge. Then another. Reload. Breathe. Fire.

The group was remaining mostly stationary. It would have pissed me off if I hadn't known why. They were waiting. Waiting for the reappearance of our leader. I saw Akamu try to dodge into the alleyway, only to reappear mere moments later, driven back. But he fired at something, something down the alleyway.

I felt a cold hand of dread close over my heart.

But I tried not to think about it. I tried to focus on what I was doing. I didn't want to think about what was happening down there. I didn't…

I heard Akamu shout Eden's name as he rammed the butt end of his gun into an Infected who had got too close for shooting range. I knew it was probably not standard gun safety behavior, but it worked in the movies.

Yet still, I didn't see Eden.

"Eden, where are you?" I breathed furiously, taking aim once again.

Then through the scope of my gun, I saw Akamu hesitate, his body angled towards the alleyway. For just that moment, he faltered. It was all it took. One of the Infected threw itself at him, faster than I could have ever been to react and protect. But I didn't have to. A tall, large man next to Akamu had seen the threat and with practiced ease eliminated it, spraying my friend in the remains of a creature that had come so close to destroying him. The large Polynesia stumbled, coughing, unable to resist as his large savior shouted something and began dragging him back. Dragging him away from the alleyway. Away from our friend.

I thought I was crying. Maybe I was. I certainly was breathing harder than normal, and my head was spinning, reeling, unable to comprehend what was happening.

But I had a job to do.

Sniper mode. Ha ha.

The horde was thinning now, but there were still enough to worry about. I kept my gun mostly trained on the zombies in the back, the ones closet to the entrance to the alleyway. I didn't know if Eden was still alive. I didn't want to think about it. But somehow, it seemed that out of all of us, she would be the one least likely to die. She would be the one least likely to get hurt, the one who, in this situation, would somehow pull a miracle and survive. How many times had she pulled through worse situations? How many life and death encounters had we gone through over the past few weeks?

She was invincible. She would survive. I just had to help her. Give her a chance.

That was what I told myself, anyway. That was what I wanted desperately to believe. That was what I _had_ to believe.

The remaining survivors were nearly to us now with Infected on their heels. That would have to be taken care of, or we would end up being overrun in the safe house.

With numb fingers, my mind strangely empty and focused, I released my gun and snatched up a waiting pipe bomb I had pulled from my backpack and set aside earlier. I lit it with a lighter I had fished from my pocket, and then chucked it as hard as I could out the window as far down the street on the other side as possible.

The Infected immediately followed it as it bounced and blinked and spun away, leaving the survivors to take advantage of the momentary reprieve in order to pile into the building through the waiting door below me, held open by Professor Horatio and Alicia. I stuck around just long enough to ensure there were no more threats, to watch as the Infected crowded around the powerful weapon before, with a startling, tremendous bang, it exploded, scattering limbs and blood and guts all over the street. And then I was running down the stairs two at a time, dodging around the piles of stacked chairs and tables in the wide, main room, dashing in through the heavy metal door after the heels of the last survivor, past Professor Horatio who was waiting there patiently for me to join them.

I skidded to a stop a few feet in, heaving my breath, my weapons and bag held shakily in death grips at my side.

The room was smaller than the numerous other safe rooms we had been in, made even smaller by the shelving that lined every well. But maybe that was just because it was more crowded than usual, filled with four strangers as it was. I looked around at them, my eyes wide, searching, begging silently to whatever god existed that what I had seen on the street had been a mistake, that somehow Eden had snuck in alongside with them, hidden in the blind spot of my range of vision from the second story window.

But there were only eight of us. There should have been nine.

One was missing.

Oh god.

The door banged shut behind me, the latch sliding into place. The sound startled me into taking a step forward, the words I didn't want to say ripped from my throat.

"Where's Eden?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly.

Akamu's eyes flickered briefly up to look at me before he turned away, walking to the very back of the narrow safe room and heavily sitting himself onto the floor, his back to the wall, gaze staring straight ahead without really seeing. Covered in blood and gore, he looked like something out of my nightmares. But he didn't seem to notice. He looked lost. Stunned. Ashamed. I felt my stomach drop, my throat choke, mouth dry. His actions and expression were worse than any words could be.

I hastily turned to glance at the other two members of our team. Professor Horatio stood with his back to the now closed door as always, gun held loosely in his grip as he stared around the safe house, apparently taking little interest in our conversation as usual, although there was a stone coldness in his eyes that told me he had seen the events unfold out on the street as well. Alicia sat in a corner, hugging her gun to herself and glancing between me, Akamu, and the strangers with wide, frightened eyes, biting her lip until the skin was shock white.

"Where's Eden?" I repeated again, my voice stronger but no less filled with anguish.

"Last I saw, she was high tailing it down the alleyway."

I whirled around immediately to face the source of the voice. It had come from an older man with a snow-white beard. He had drawn out a cigarette and a lighter from somewhere and was glaring at the now smoldering white stick as if it were Infected.

"What?"

He sighed. "She got separated from the rest of the group trying to save one of my people from one of them Smokers and she got pounced on by a Hunter in the process. Your friend there drove the monster off of her, but we got overrun before she could pick herself up and come after us. Wasn't anything we could do to save her without getting killed."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't say anything. Couldn't find the voice. It felt like a part of me was suddenly being ripped away.

I sat down then. Hard. I was vaguely aware of Alicia breaking out into tears and sobs—it somewhat surprised me. The two girls hadn't really gotten along very well. Their personalities and ways of coping with this zombie apocalypse had just been too different, too opposite. But then, Eden had been the only other female non-Infected that we had encountered up until that point, and I realized that Alicia had looked up to her a lot more than any of us had thought. She was feeling the blow of her loss as much as Akamu. As much as me. As much, I suspected, as even Professor Horatio, for all his non-feeling and distance to us.

How could she be gone? How could the one person we had all depended on, all looked up to, all grown to love, and admire, and fear, be taken from us in barely less than a heartbeat?

The old stranger was talking to me, trying to tell me something. But it was a struggle to listen. A part of my mind wasn't really there. Wasn't really feeling. All I could hear, all I could think of, all I could see, was a young, beautiful Asian girl with a wild, reckless sense of loyalty, a fierce strength, and a katana in hand.

We had lost Eden. And I hadn't even had the chance to say good-bye.

* * *

After we got some rest and some food and introduced ourselves to the other group of survivors, Akamu and I decided that as soon as it was daylight, we would go out and search for her. The other survivors, especially the old man, tried to convince us not to endanger ourselves any further, that we should at least sleep first, but they didn't seem to have much heart in their arguments. They seemed to understand how we felt, and even offered to come along with us. But we declined. Rather viciously, as it were. Either Akamu and I found her, or we didn't, and we weren't going to risk the lives of strangers if we didn't have to. Eden was our friend. Our companion. It was up to us to come after her. She had been lost trying to save them, and she would never forgive us if they were injured trying to save her.

In truth, we just didn't want to share our pain. We couldn't.

The other survivors at last agreed to our course of action, and told us that they would probably be leaving if—when—we got back. They asked us if we wanted to join them. Safety in numbers. But again, we declined. We told them that we—Eden and the rest of us—had decided early on to wait twenty-four hours if one of us were to be separated. They offered to wait as well, but it…it didn't feel right. They seemed to understand. It was like they were intruding on a funeral of a stranger. That was how I felt about it anyway. I just wanted them to leave us. I didn't want them to stick around because they were the reminder of what we had lost and why, even though my brain told me that it wasn't really their fault. It wasn't really anyone's fault.

My heart felt differently, though.

Eventually, both of our groups decided to go our separate ways—we would continue to one of the next safe houses to the west, and they would continue on in their attempts to get out of the city by a different route to the north.

They explained it all, and I pretended to listen politely. But in truth, I didn't care. I just couldn't. All I cared about was Eden. I had no room left to worry about them.

The young woman with them came up to me while we waited for daylight. It was the same woman who had been snagged by the smoker, the same woman Eden had tried to save and did. I guess it should have been comforting to know that Eden's last attempt had something to show for it.

It wasn't comforting to me, though. Not a damn bit.

She talked to me about Eden. Asked me politely who she was, how we had met, how she was like. Told me that she was very grateful to her and us for helping them. I could tell that she felt guilty, that she was trying to make me feel better in her own little way, but I was too tired and stressed and miserable to try to reassure her and I answered her questions in short, distracted answers. Eventually, she joined her group in pulling out some of the stored sleeping bags and getting some rest for their journey ahead.

Daylight came before too long, and Akamu and I immediately gathered our weapons and set out, wondering if we were about to run into a bigger mess than the one we were currently in. But once we got out into the open street, bathed in the light of the new day, we found that we were alone. Not a single living Infected in sight.

And so we searched. We called her name into the still, dead air as loudly as we dared. But there was no answer. There was no sign. We searched for nearly five blocks in every direction, and we studied the alleyway she had last been seen until I thought I knew every brick. Ever inch of asphalt. But there was nothing but the splattered, splayed remains of dead Infected. Nothing we recognized as belonging to her.

I was glad there wasn't a body at least. That gave me hope. A little.

Not much though.

We considered the fact that she had managed to get on to the fire escape. Akamu told me that the last thing she had yelled was "up and over," the phrase she always used when we would resort to climbing a fire escape for safety. But there was only one fire escape, and it was much too high for her to reach, even jumping. We knew how short she was.

I felt my eyes and nose stinging. My throat was raw, painful. How could this have happened? To her, of all people? To the leader of our pathetic little group of struggling university survivors? Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't it have been me?

Akamu rested his hand on my shoulder as I stood there and struggled not to cry. I knew that there were tears in his eyes too, but we didn't look at each other. We didn't talk. We just stood there. Waiting. Listening. Hoping.

Yet…perhaps she could have made the jump if she climbed onto the dumpster a few feet below and to the side of the fire escape. But a distance like that for a girl her size and upper body strength would have taken a miracle, and the lid was covered with the slippery, rotting remains of an Infected. Still though…maybe a miracle was exactly what had happened. Maybe somehow she had made it. Maybe she was just a small climb and a few building floors away, tucked up safely on the roof or in one of the rooms…

We never got the chance to check, though. We heard a warning growl from up above, a growl we knew to herald more trouble than the two of us wanted to deal with, and we immediately ran out of there, back to the building housing the safe room, back to the other survivors and safety.

Nothing followed us. But it didn't have to. The damage hearing that growl had done to our hopes was more than enough pain to last us a hundred lifetimes.

When we reentered the safe house, exhausted, defeated, and empty handed, the other group of survivors was packing up, preparing to move out as they had planned. The older man, the one we had discovered to be their leader, came up to me as Akamu and I entered. He and his companions seemed to consider me the leader of my survivors, now that Eden was gone. His hand was outstretched. I took it.

"I'm sorry about your friend," he said gruffly. "I know how it feels to lose a comrade, son, but you have to keep moving on. You can't get stuck in the past…"  
"She's still alive," I said stubbornly, my voice coming out harsher than I had intended. I took a deep, steadying breath before continuing, trying to pretend I didn't notice the sad, understanding look in the older man's eyes, the look that told me he had seen this stubborn denial before. "You don't know her like we do. She's still alive."  
The other man nodded slowly, and I could easily see that he did not believe my words. It made me want to believe in Eden's invincibility even more. "Well, _when _you see her then, tell her thanks. Takes a special kind of person to put others first like that."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah…yeah, she is."

He turned and walked away to talk to one of the other men in his group, and almost immediately the young woman from their group approached me, her eyes downcast and sad.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly for what was probably the hundredth time. "She was trying to save me…"

"That's just how she is," I said firmly. I reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. She looked up at me, her expression filled with guilt and a slight bit of anger. At herself. At the Infected. At the whole damn situation. It was a look that reminded me painfully of Eden. "Don't worry about it."

The girl wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, even though I had seen no tears. She was forcing herself to hide them. Forcing herself to stay strong, for my sake I think. "Well, tell her…tell her thanks for me."

I nodded slowly, just as I had for the old man. There was nothing else to say.

They left then. Moved on. On into a future none of us could imagine. Not that we wanted to. Maybe it would have been smarter for us to take them up on their offer. It was probably what Eden would have told us to do.

But I knew that if it had been any of us, Eden would have waited. She would never have abandoned us, not unless she had no choice. So we waited. Just a little longer. Just a few more hours…

Eventually, though, we began to realize that we were simply making excuses. The twenty-four hours were suddenly thirty-six. The stagnant silence in the safe room was becoming nearly unbearable, more so than the silence that persistently hung over the city in those moments of strained, quiet traveling.

"We need to get going," I said at last, the first words any of us had spoken since the other survivors had left. It was the words I knew that the rest wanted to say, but couldn't bring themselves to. So it was up to me. Up to the man who had been the group joker for the past several weeks. But I hadn't even thought of laughter since we had arrived there, since Eden had disappeared. "We can't…we can't stay here forever. We all agreed to only wait twenty-four hours…Eden knows that…"

The rest nodded, but no one made any further move to act.

I sighed heavily and pushed myself up off the sleeping bag I had been resting on. I piled what remained of the safe room supplies into a corner on the table in the back of the room. I fished out the map the other group and us had been perusing hours before in planning our next moves, found the next safe house my survivors had agreed to head to, and marked it clearly. Then I dug around until I found a thick, heavy black marker and some paint.

Akamu came up a few minutes into my work and added some of his first aid supplies into the pile. Then the two of us turned to look at each other, asking with just our eyes what exactly we were supposed to do now, knowing the answer, but hating the very thought of it.

"We'll write her a message," I said quietly, my voice hoarse. "For when she…for when she catches up."

Akamu nodded slowly in agreement. I knew that he wanted to believe she was still alive as much as I did. Maybe even more so. I could not even begin to comprehend the immeasurable amount of guilt I knew he was feeling. But I saw it in his hooded eyes. In his anguished face. He blamed himself for leaving her behind. Even though we all knew it was not his fault.

It was no one's fault. No one we knew, anyway.

I held the maker out to him and he took it, ambling over to the corner above the supplies we were going to leave for her. I simply watched, staring over his shoulder as he painted out a large, obvious U with black paint, and then used the marker to write out the message I couldn't write myself.

_Eden,  
Tried to find you, but too dangerous. We are all okay, thanks to you. We waited 24 hours. Left to next safe house. Sorry. So sorry. We pray you are alive. God willing, we will see you again._

"Is that enough?" asked Akamu slowly.

"No," I breathed quietly. "It will never be enough."

* * *

"They're sending a helicopter," announced Akamu, his voice unusually loud. I heard an excitement and relief in it that I had never heard from him before, that I had never really heard at all from anyone since the outbreak. But it was heavily marred with pain. Not the physical type. "They're coming to get us. Fifteen minutes."

I tried to smile, but I couldn't quite manage it. I knew that the rest felt the same. Miserable. Guilty. Disbelieving.

We had been traveling all day to get to the next safe house. It was well into the night now, and we were all exhausted. We hadn't run into as many Infected as it seemed we usually would have done, but the ones we had encountered had cost us precious time and energy. But that energy had been renewed rather swiftly once we entered the next safe house and discovered we were only six blocks away from an evac site. Six blocks away from an end to this nightmare. We took only a few minutes to replenish supplies and leave Eden a final message on the graffiti-covered walls before heading towards it, our steps light and our faces filled with energetic smiles.

And now here we were, huddled together on the roof of a recently abandoned community center turned military evacuation site. There were a few hastily built structures on that roof, including a radio room and instructions on contacting the military. Just in case any survivors had been left behind. Like us. The other structures contained non-perishable food supplies, weapons, clothes, blankets, first aid kits…it was like a department store with everything we needed, I suppose in the instance we got here and found that we couldn't evacuate but needed to rest. There were also fortified rooms on the top floor of the building downstairs for the same reason.

But they weren't for us. Not really. Because after nearly a quarter of an hour of patient tinkering, Akamu had gotten through to someone on the radio.

We were getting out of here. The long weeks of terror and life or death was about to draw to a close. Hopefully.

Yet it didn't seem to matter much. The triumph I had felt only a few minutes before was all but gone. Once the excitement of finally reaching our objective had worn off, of realizing that we would be leaving this godforsaken city, we had realized with horror what it all meant: we had lost Eden merely a day's journey our goal. If she had just pulled through one more time… If we hadn't run into those other survivors…

If. If. If.

I hated that word.

I held my gun close to me, my legs drawn up to my chest and my gaze focused furiously on my knees. I was angry. So, so angry. And I was in pain. I hadn't thought about her all day, having forced myself to focus on the journey at hand. I had taken over being the leader of our little group. Akamu was too distressed, Professor Horatio too distant, Alicia too unwilling. It was up to me to fill Eden's shoes. But now that I had nothing to do but to sit and wait in the defeated silence that had fallen between the lot of us, all I could think about was her.

I thought of the way she always seemed so eager to fling herself into a fight, yet she had always avoided the unnecessary ones whenever she could. She was more than willing to put herself in harm's way, but when it came to doing so to the rest of us…she cared about us too much. Even though she acted distant, controlled, calm. She had always seemed so untouched by what was going on around her, so unaffected by the fact that the world had gone to hell. It was like she had been meant for this life, and that confidence had kept us going. Kept us alive. Kept us sane.

At least, she had kept me sane. Somehow, I knew that through her, I had managed to retain my sanity in a world where such sanity was hard to find. She had joked with me when no one else would, had played along with my pathetic attempts to lighten the constantly dreary mood. It had saved me more than once from my damning thoughts in those moments of terror and pain. My god, she had not only saved my life with her fierceness and her confidence and her blade more times than I could count. She had saved my mind. It was something I would never be able to repay.

Ironic that she would be the one to die.

I closed my eyes and kneaded them furiously with my palms. No, she wasn't dead. Somehow, a part of me knew she was still alive. She would follow us. She would read our messages and come after us.

And I…I would be there for her when she did.

Something poked through the glaze over my mind, interrupting my thoughts and memories and my decision. It was…a sound. Something. Something coming closer.

My head lifted. It sounded like…like a helicopter.

I stood, my eyes trained in the direction of the distant noise. The rest of my group stood as well, and Akamu came over to stand at my shoulder.

"I'm staying," I muttered quietly into the stillness. I saw the others turn to look at me, Alicia with a startled expression; Professor Horatio with his typical slack emotionless gaze; Akamu with his haunted, steadying look. "I'll wait a few days, a few weeks…whatever it takes. If she doesn't turn up…I'll go back there and search every godforsaken inch of space until I find a clue of what happened to her."

There was silence, punctuated only by the rapidly loudening sound of the approaching helicopter. Salvation. So close…

"I will stay as well," said Akamu in his low, quiet voice. I turned to look at him, prepared to argue, but he fixed his gaze on me and I knew that any disagreement would be pointless. He had probably been thinking the same thoughts while we had sat there, waiting for a rescue that we didn't want. Couldn't.

Professor Horatio nodded, hefting up his gun. His jaw was set and his eyes were filled with more fierce emotion than I had ever seen from him before.

"I'll…I'll stay too then," said Alicia tremulously.

"No, you need to go," I said firmly, stepping to her and resting my free hand on her shoulder. "One of us has to go. One of us has to make it to the outside world. We need you to try to contact our families, see if they're still alive. And if they are…let them know what happened to us. Tell them that we'll see them again."

The girl swallowed painfully and sniffed as tears came spilling down her cheeks. I knew that she didn't want to leave us, even if it meant staying here in this city, in this world that she had never really truly accepted being apart of. We were her friends.

No, we were her family.

But someone had to go. And it couldn't be Akamu, who still carried the guilt of leaving Eden behind. It couldn't be Professor Horatio, who had been more deeply affected by the Infection more than the rest of us, who probably couldn't go back to any form of his old life even if he wanted to. It couldn't be me, because I could never forget my sense of admiration, caring, appreciation, for the girl we had lost but wanted so badly to find again.

We flicked on one of the large halogen lights that had been positioned around the building, guiding the approaching craft to its destination. The helicopter landed shortly, and several men in military attire came pouring out, rushing towards us. A tall man with a gash on his jaw line and a haunted gaze reached us first, shouting over the loud chopping of the rotary blades and beckoning to us. I took Alicia's arm and pulled her towards them while Akamu and the professor hung back.

"Take her," I yelled briskly over the nearly deafening noise, dodging out of the hands reaching towards me. "The rest of us are staying. We're waiting for someone."

The men glanced at each other, apparently seriously debating on whether to believe us and let us go, or to force us to come with them. The tall man with the scar shrugged and ordered his two companions to take Alicia to the helicopter, and then he turned to us.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," I said firmly, stepping back.

The man regarded me carefully, as if gauging my sanity. His jaw was set, his eyes hard and emotionless from the hundreds of horrors he had seen. Then at last, he held out his hand to me, and I took it and shook.

"If you change your mind, you know how to reach us," he yelled, his voice gruff. I could tell that he thought we were insane. But he was too tired to argue. Too sick of the world to care. And maybe, somehow, a part of him understood, even though he didn't really know. "I won't promise we'll always be there—the situation changes every damn day—but if we are, we'll come for you. Just don't wait too long okay?"

I nodded.

The soldier saluted us, turned, and hurried away. I looked past him to the helicopter, illuminated by the halogen light. I saw Alicia's scared, guilty face staring out at us through the glass. I forced a wide, reassuring smile and raised my hand to her, my heart hurting as she raised her own hand and pressed it against the window, tears streaming freely down her face. We were losing another member of our little family, and I knew with a glance at the two men beside me that it was affecting all of us. Even the professor. But this was necessary. If all else failed, at least one of us would make it to safety. At least one of us would survive to go on, to possibly be there when the Infection finally ended, when the world was rebuilt and lives could go on.

It couldn't be me. Not yet, anyway.

The three of us retreated to the edge of the building as the doors were slammed shut and pilot readied to lift off. He nodded to us through the glass. But all I focused on was Alicia's face. All I could think of was how this would have been like if Eden had been there.

But she _wasn't_ there.

She would be soon, though. I had to just keep telling myself that. And when she was…I would tell her what she meant to me. I would tell her how she had saved me. How she had saved all of us.

The three of us stood on top of the building then, side by side, three men with nothing but the faintest glimmer of hope and an unwavering amount of stubborn determination for an apparently hopeless cause. We stood, silent, unmoving, and watched as the helicopter lifted slowly into the sky, turned, and disappeared into the darkness.

"She'll come," I said quietly once the city was still.

Akamu nodded. "Yes. She will come."

**Author's Babble**: While in the process of writing the very, very, _very_ early chapters of _Retaining Sanity_, I was originally going to have Eden meet up with Akamu and Charlie, who would be waiting for her at the evac site. But that wouldn't have left much time for me to develop Eden's relationship with the hunter, so that optional storyline was dropped in favor of the one currently in use.

It makes you wonder though…what would have happened if Eden had gone to the evac site instead of walking away?


End file.
